The Fear of Subversion

After the Second World War the United States became deeply involved in Italy. Its major goal was to integrate Italy into the Western bloc, and this was accomplished with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (NAT) on 4 April 1949. Defeated in World War II and limited militarily by the 1946 Treaty of Paris, the Mediterranean nation now became an essential element of Western defense. The decision, ultimately made by the United States, to include Italy in the NAT has received little scholarly attention. Indeed, only recently have historians begun to explore postwar Italian-American relations in some depth.1 The negotiations leading to the inclusion of Italy nevertheless offer significant insights into postwar Italian-American relations, the process which produced the alliance, and the nature of the pact itself. Despite President Harry S Truman's recollection that the alliance developed to counteract the fear that a Soviet invasion could overrun Western Europe before effective help could arrive, most Western policymakers denied that this was the major issue. The governments of the United States, Great Britain, and France did not dismiss the possibility of war with the Soviet Union, but they believed in 1948–1949 that the greater danger was a continued infiltration and undermining of Western European governments by Soviet-backed internal fifth columns.2 Thus, the NAT initially had three purposes: first, to build a sense of confidence in Europe so that economic recovery could proceed at a fast pace; second, to protect against an external invasion, no matter how remote that possibility; and third, but no less important, to protect the member states against internal Communist subversion.3

Alliance · Economic history · Negotiation · North Atlantic Treaty · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Treaty · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law

• Western defence developments and Turkey's search for security in 1948

  Ekavi Athanassopoulou•Middle Eastern Studies•1996

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• Commitment to Nato and Domestic Politics

  Open Access•Leopoldo Nuti•Contemporary European History•1998

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• Great Britain and Italy 1945–56

  Antonio Varsori•Diplomacy and Statecraft•1992

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• Britain and the issue of Italian membership of Nato, 1948–49

  Martin H Folly•Review of International Studies•1987

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• Origins of the Cold War in Europe and the Near East

  Howard Jones, Randall Bennett Woods•Diplomatic History•1993

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